Sunday, January 29, 2017

I know that many people are frightened and angry because of the actions of the Trump administration, and rightly so. It's very tempting to express that fear and anger by insulting or verbally abusing those who voted for and/or support Trump. But doing so, while it might make you feel better in the moment, is not going to have any positive impact.
Have opposition criticisms of a leader you support, be it Obama, Bush, or Clinton, ever convinced you to change your mind? Or did the attack on "your" leader simply cause you to harden your heart further?
It may take a while, but I think the most effective approach is to simply ask, and keep asking, consistently, continuously, and in many different ways, "How does this specific Trump administration policy make you personally better off?
We are not going to change minds by calling Trump a racist, a misogynist, or a demagogue. Many of his supporters may very well prefer a whiter, more male-dominated America, where educated "elites" exercise less power. To put it in terms my Silicon Valley friends will recognize, to Trump's supporters, these are features, not bugs.
But many people voted for Trump because they felt that he was the only candidate offering them potential solutions that would better their lives--less globalization, fewer immigrants, more jobs for "real" Americans. Trump's solutions are unlikely to work. Cajoling a small number of companies to preserve a small number of American factory jobs is not going to help more than a infinitesimally small proportion of people who voted for Trump.
I believe that Trump and his team realize this, and believe that their best chance to keep those voters from realizing that the Trump administration is going to make their lives worse, rather than better, is to keep them distracted by trying to focus their attention on "enemies," be they foreigners or those coastal liberals who look down on "real" Americans.
I'm not arguing against protests or condemnation of the Trump administration. These seem to me to be justifiable and potentially useful. But reaching out to people who voted for Trump requires a different approach. And in a year or two, when they are still working the same job (or not working) and their lives have not improved one iota, I think they may very well start to listen.